Origin of Life: Organic chemists don't know how (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 17, 2014, 17:25 (3691 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

dhw: ...since no-one has ever observed macroevolution, we can only theorize about it. If we disregard the seemingly insoluble problem of how life originated, we are left with the usual choices: 1) random mutations; 2) separate creation by God; 3) dabbling by God; 4) preprogramming by God; 5) an autonomous inventive mechanism (origin unknown, but let's say for now God designed it). The very fact that we can observe microevolution suggests that there is an autonomous mechanism which works towards purposeful change, in this case enabling organisms to adapt to their environment. This is not random, so out goes 1). Options 2) and 3) would keep God mighty busy organizing every single variation, and 4) would require zillions and zillions of programmes to be built into the first cells. These options all seem pretty unlikely to me. That leaves 5). So maybe an autonomous mechanism that can adapt can also invent.-DAVID: I agree about (1). With (2) God wouldn't need evolution so it is out. (3 & 4) are reasonable and probably within God's power, but then for me it makes the mechanism of evolution a confusing choice for God. Heck, just direct it all the time, which is a sub-choice (3a & 4a). (5) is certainly possible if semi-autonomous as I have described.
With 'autonomous' you are also trying to have your cake and eating it. The jump from Ediacarens to Cambrian animals is a jump your IM doesn't explain. The planning is too great, and trial and error itty-bittiness is not present in a copious fossil record.-We have been over this before, when I listed the possible reasons for there being no fossil record to explain the jump. Still with my theist hat on, if God was clever enough to preprogramme the Cambrian jump into the first cells of 3.7 billion years ago, why do you insist that he can't have been clever enough to invent a mechanism that would work out its own way to cope with or exploit the new conditions?
 
DAVID: To backtrack slightly since I am trying to equate evolution with a plan by God, the planning for first life is an even greater gap than the Ed-Cam jump. Both events show the same handiwork. And your approach can't touch that with a fork!-We are dealing with hypotheses that explain how evolution might work. I explicitly wrote, and you quoted: “If we disregard the seemingly insoluble problem of how life originated, we are left with the usual choices.” My approach is not meant to touch on that subject, but all through this discussion I have adopted a theistic stance. If your God invented the inventive mechanism, then of course he invented life. Our subject here is whether evolution has a purpose, and whether the mechanism is autonomous (a very clear concept) or “semi-autonomous”, which is just about as fluffy as it gets!
 
TONY: I am not certain how you two view 2), 3) and 4) as mutually exclusive. If I were going to do 2) I would certainly use 4) to do it. When I was done, I might even go back and use 3) to tweak and fine tune some things, or if necessary, to intervene at key moments to make sure things went the way I wanted them to.-I must say I'd never thought of 2) and 4) as being identical, but it simplifies the argument. Preprogramming would follow precisely the same course as evolution: we'd have no way of knowing whether organisms evolved of their own accord or were following instructions. However, I find it hard to believe that God could put into the first living cells the zillions and zillions of instructions necessary to create every life form and mode of behaviour for the next 3.7 billion years, allowing for every change in the environment. I know you would confine this to “kinds” and not variations, but as I pointed out above, if there is an autonomous mechanism for microevolution, then maybe your God created the same mechanism to drive macroevolution.
 
The idea that really interests me, though, is that of God making sure things went the way he wanted them to. This was the tantalising point at which you left us last time, on the “Evolution v Creationism” thread. You said there: 
“I never claimed that everything was created towards the purpose of creating humans. Humanity was created for a purpose, that of being stewards of the Earth. Everything else also has a purpose. Most of the time it is simply maintaining homeostasis [...] but other times it is as an active participant in the development of the world. Humanity was seen as the crowning achievement, not the end goal.” -David, who insists that humanity is the end goal, asked where your view is stated in the bible. I asked what you meant by “the development of the world” (which fits in beautifully with my whole concept of an autonomous inventive mechanism endlessly creating new forms), and what you thought really was God's “end goal".